I'm rising by Roman Catholic family, but myself pretty much agnostic. But some religious/cult has 'rules' are reasonable like Ten Commandments, not 1-4. Just 5-10. I enjoy some Buddhist teachings, Buddhism are not religious, but people use them as religious.

No, I am not religious and I do not believe in God. However, I do not have an issue if someone is religious or does believe in God. To each their own. Where I do have issue however, is when people shove their own personal religious beliefs down your throat and condemn you when you don't have the same opinion. Do Atheists do that as well? Of course. It's just as wrong when they do it.

Where I have the biggest issue with religion is when it comes to politicians, I feel that too many politicians can't set aside their own personal religious beliefs long enough to see that what they might believe does not coincide with what the country itself needs as a whole.

Are you saying there's something messing with my dicerolls? because if something's interfering with the way the dice come down they've got some explaining to do to me about my DnD sessions. But in all seriousness.

The sad part about wha you just said, is that you probably mean this in a really positive way, even though from where I view that, it's absolutely horrible.

I can deal with the idea that we are the way we are because we aren't the product of intent. The fact that our own cells can rebel against us and kill us. That this happens to kids. That over 99% of the universe is incredibly hostile to us. That kids die of the most horrid diseases, that some poeple are born with birth defects based on stupid chance outcomes of gene shuffling. That people die because they just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, or because some drunk driver happened to drive at full speed crashing into an unsuspecting pedestrian. What purpose could that possibly serve? How could that be anything but cold coincidence? If you're telling someone not to be sad because a loved one has died, because there's a reason for everything, I find that repugnant (even if you meant it to be comforting). Someone who has just lost someone dear to them and you're telling them there's a reason for everything, makes it sound like they shouldn't be as sad as they are. To hell with that. This world doesn't care about us one bit and we have all the reason in the world to be sad if something terrible happens to the people we love.

I have no idea what possible purpose we could have in the world and neither do I care. People can find their own goals in life to live towards. Intellectual fullfilment, the joy of seeing a person smile in appreciation, seeing new things in general. Life is full of great stuff without the need to imbue it with some grand purpose.

All of this is encapsulated and said far better in this hilarious video from Tim Minchin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET1-_PeExMs

If someone was to ask me for comfort you'd think that i would tell them words of comfort. I don't believe in telling people things, they discover their own reasons. Your happiness is dependent on yourself. Humans look for goals and discovering things but the world doesn't care much for the human need for discovery and still moves in its own accord. What irks me about normal people is that they act like they contribute anything to science apart from having sex. The biggest scientists through out time, some religious and some not. All these arguments about what's real and what's not is boring and without cause.

The point is that too often the whole 'things happen for a reason' line is used as words of comfort when it shouldn't be. Of course I have no idea what words of comfort you'd use so I'm not speaking about you personally about that.

Beyond that what you said was a bit of an incoherent mess.

if you don't believe in telling people things, then why state that there are no coincidences. That sounds to me like you're telling people something.

If the world moves in it's own accord with no regard for what happens to humans, then why state that there are no coincidences. Those two statements sound contradictory to me.

what are 'normal people' and how does having sex contribute anything to science? I could sort of get it if you would say having children even though that doesn't really contribute to science either, but just having sex definitely doesn't. You can have sex without people getting pregnant you know.

Yes, there are scientists who are religious. If you count every scientist who ever lived, the majority would probably be theistic or deistic. Still, of the people who understand the way the universe works the best, the vast majority currently don't believe in a god. That itself doesn't prove that gods don't exist of course. As I've said before, it's perfectly possible to compartimentalize beliefs about gods outside the science you do as a scientist, but if the same critical thinking is applied to religious beliefs as it is to the science, rejection of religous claims is as far as I'm concerned, the only consistent outcome.

Finally, I don't really care about whether or not people believe a god exists. I care about why people believe things and how it affects other beliefs and their behavior. If the god concept gets reduced to an entity that just kickstarted the universe and now watches it play out, that seems pretty harmless to me. However the moment stuff like the existence of souls, the afterlife and morality from authority get introduced, that's where harmful ideas come in that I deem worth combatting.

I'm not asking you to agree on that, and if you don't feel like replying, go right ahead and don't. I don't treat having the last comment as a victory. I won't dog you for a response and I'm not demanding you change your mind. Even if you do feel like replying but not like continuing to argue, go right ahead and do that. I might respond to your reply or I might not depending on the context, but if you say you're done talking then you're done talking and that'll be it.

The point is that too often the whole 'things happen for a reason' line is used as words of comfort when it shouldn't be. Of course I have no idea what words of comfort you'd use so I'm not speaking about you personally about that.

Beyond that what you said was a bit of an incoherent mess.

if you don't believe in telling people things, then why state that there are no coincidences. That sounds to me like you're telling people something.

If the world moves in it's own accord with no regard for what happens to humans, then why state that there are no coincidences. Those two statements sound contradictory to me.

what are 'normal people' and how does having sex contribute anything to science? I could sort of get it if you would say having children even though that doesn't really contribute to science either, but just having sex definitely doesn't. You can have sex without people getting pregnant you know.

Yes, there are scientists who are religious. If you count every scientist who ever lived, the majority would probably be theistic or deistic. Still, of the people who understand the way the universe works the best, the vast majority currently don't believe in a god. That itself doesn't prove that gods don't exist of course. As I've said before, it's perfectly possible to compartimentalize beliefs about gods outside the science you do as a scientist, but if the same critical thinking is applied to religious beliefs as it is to the science, rejection of religous claims is as far as I'm concerned, the only consistent outcome.

Finally, I don't really care about whether or not people believe a god exists. I care about why people believe things and how it affects other beliefs and their behavior. If the god concept gets reduced to an entity that just kickstarted the universe and now watches it play out, that seems pretty harmless to me. However the moment stuff like the existence of souls, the afterlife and morality from authority get introduced, that's where harmful ideas come in that I deem worth combatting.

I'm not asking you to agree on that, and if you don't feel like replying, go right ahead and don't. I don't treat having the last comment as a victory. I won't dog you for a response and I'm not demanding you change your mind. Even if you do feel like replying but not like continuing to argue, go right ahead and do that. I might respond to your reply or I might not depending on the context, but if you say you're done talking then you're done talking and that'll be it.

as you said, "It gives hope. For some people hope in Christ that there is something else is better than this life.
Constant pain, cancer, murder, tumors, worries, fear, so many emotions and things that happens in this life. Some things God has blessed is with but he has never left us. Everyone has a measure of faith and hope. Faith: The substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.
You can't see wind but you feel it. God can be felt by some people.
For some people they can feel the presence of God through the spirit of hope that Jesus gave when he died upon the cross.
Hope for a better life without the troubles of this world. a better life a new name and a new body.

When life looks empty, when depression and a host of other things come against you. It's the hope of God that sees people though.

I am a man of science and stopped believing in god when I was around 11. I was never a christian but a sikh and the concepts in christianity really confuse me they really are very ludicrous (not to offend anybody). I am to all extents an atheist but I stil do identify with other sikhs since theres a lot of history that goes around it. but yup still atheist lol

as you said, "It gives hope. For some people hope in Christ that there is something else is better than this life.
Constant pain, cancer, murder, tumors, worries, fear, so many emotions and things that happens in this life. Some things God has blessed is with but he has never left us. Everyone has a measure of faith and hope. Faith: The substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.
You can't see wind but you feel it. God can be felt by some people.
For some people they can feel the presence of God through the spirit of hope that Jesus gave when he died upon the cross.
Hope for a better life without the troubles of this world. a better life a new name and a new body.

When life looks empty, when depression and a host of other things come against you. It's the hope of God that sees people though.

I don't think believing something because you hope it to be true is particularly useful. Instead it sounds paralyzing to me. Why work to improve life now if you can just wait for the next life that will be better. But that's more of a value argument and if believing in a god gives people hope then so be it.

I take more of an issue with your statement that everyone has faith. As I've stated before, I don't have faith in anything.
I have tentative trust in people based on past interactions, but those update based on continuing behavior and hope plays no role in that. If I find I hold beliefs that are unfounded I discard them. Beliefs inform actions after all, as well as what other beliefs we're likely to accept. Critical thinking skills are important precicely because as humans wer'e prone to making errors.

Your definition looks like it uses seen like in percievable (see how that word goes back to visual stimuli as well) as in we can sense that it's there. If you really only use see in the narrow definition of seeing with your eyes, then you're using a really weird definition of fath. If a bunch of people hear you say something that is still not something taken on faith, just because they didn't see the sound.

Anyway, wind is a perfect example of something that can be demonstrated (even visually) because it's a process that affects other objects. You can see the effect of wind when it blows leaves. Besides that you can hear it and feel it. Our explenations for wind come from an understanding of air currents amongst other things, but we don't have to take the existence of wind on faith. Same goes for gravity and evolution. We've built our model of reality by taking the consensus of what our different senses suggest us and going from there to find explanations for our observations, which we then continue to test against new observations. Science doesn't require faith, it demonstrates.

As to people experiencing god doing things to them, that always seems to be an indirect inference. People have a feeling, found something on a significant date or had some experience that can be framed into a religious allegory. However the phenomena of a creator god cannot be experienced. Besides that an experience with god is necissarily personal and to anyone else it's no more than hearsay. We already know people can easily be tricked visually and mentally by stage magicians and the like, so hearsay isn't good enough evidence.

I have never been depressed, so I can't judge people who have been and found hope in a god, but hope can be derived from falsehoods in equal amounts as it can be from truths, Depression is a vulnerable state though that too many are eager to exploit, so anything that appears to aim for that angle is treated with suspect from me.